Our very own Sean Madden will be putting his skills on the line once again for America’s most prestigious Muay Thai promotion, Lion Fight. The Lion Fight 23 card is a stacked one, featuring fan favorites Kevin Ross and Tiffany Van Soest fighting against experienced Thais, and living legend Malaipet against Liam Harrison in the main event.

Coach Madden will be the very last fight on the non-televised portion of the card. Unfortunately, Lion Fight doesn’t hook up an official stream to watch the prelims. The good news for us is that Steve Eisman is out there alongside Estrogen Fight Team members Alex Barse and Liz “Lizard” Gerrity. Thankfully Liz has agreed to use technology to our advantage, and stream Sean’s fight from her phone. Here are instructions on how to check it out.

1. Download and install the Periscope app

Periscope is a live streaming app that works alongside Twitter. Follow this link to download the app for your iPhone, or this link to download it for an Android phone. No luck for you Windows Phone users out there.

2. Follow Lizard on the app

Once you’ve installed the app and created an account, you will be brought to the dashboard screen. From there, you need to click on the ‘people’ icon. On my phone, it was in the upper-right corner, as shown. On iOS devices, it may be in the lower right corner. Either way, the icon is still the same.

From there, you need to follow Liz. Tap the magnifying glass to search for Liz, then type in her account name, which is “liz_legendary”, and click Liz G to follow.

3. Watch the mayhem.

From there, just click on the broadcast icon to see everything Liz posts. She already posted an earlier video of Sean warming up, and she should be live about 10 minutes before the fight or so.

Just be warned of two things — you will be watching a cell phone video from the 9th row of the live fights. Don’t expect an HD-quality UFC broadcast. Also, don’t be surprised if you hear Liz and Alex screaming copious profanities during the fight. You kind of get like that when one of your homeboys/girls is fighting. If you’re offended by strong language, mute your phone.

The preliminary card starts at around 5:00pm PST, so 6:00pm Mountain Time. Sean is the fifth fight on the card, so the earliest he would fight would be probably 7:00pm Mountain Time. I would start checking in on Lizard’s account just before that to be sure not to miss it.

Immediately after Sean’s fight, the televised portion of the card starts on AXS TV if you want to continue to watch. And you might check out Liz’s account later that night, as she might stream some post-fight weirdness. Last time we fought on a Lion Fight card, Sean ended up trading shirts with a drunk Malaipet at like, 3AM. I was in the Las Vegas emergency room with a broken face on July 4th, which also would have made for an interesting stream.

August 1st, 2009 — I was coming off a tough training camp, but in solid shape and ready to go against tough Brazilian Fabio Serrao. Nicknamed “Jungle Boy”, Serrao is a black belt in BJJ and NAGA World Champion — he was certainly the most decorated BJJ fighter I had fought to date. Plus, he was simply huge.

I won a decision in a tough fight, but that’s really not the point of this post. At some point during the first round, I broke my thumb. Pretty bad — basically in half.

In between the first and second round, I sat down on the stool, and Eliot Marshall began feeding me instructions. I interrupted him to tell him that I thought I broke my hand. Eliot, looking shocked that I interrupted him, snapped back “I don’t give a f***!” I remember being surprised at the lack of sympathy I got, but it was pretty much exactly what I needed to hear. It turned out, Serrao didn’t care if I broke my thumb, either. I fought the next two rounds with a broken right hand, which I kept throwing at him, and kept regretting every time it landed.

Eliot's a "tough love" type of guy.

Here’s the reason for this post — I found an old memory card in my office this morning. Curious, I opened it up on my computer to see what was on it, and I found this video. My thumb required surgery, and I had two pins put in to keep the bone in place post surgery. After six weeks, I had the pins removed. Before the surgeon pulled out the second pin, I thought it would be a good idea to film it. If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like for a doctor to pull a pin out of your thumb bone, here it is…

I was surprised there was no anesthetic involved, but it really didn’t hurt. It was certainly a strange feeling, though — I remember feeling my thumb bone vibrate as he twisted the pin back and forth to pry it loose. The most painful part was my skin heating up from the friction of the twisting of the pin. Weird.

A little fun fact — 2 and a half years later, my buddy Jarred Mercado beat Fabio Serrao in a unanimous decision on another ROF card here in Colorado. Jarred broke his thumb in the first round.

It’s always tough to see one of the good guys hang their gloves up. Somebody who didn’t take any shortcuts, who never took advantage of anyone, who put his nose to the grindstone and worked his ass off through injuries, losses, and victories. Cody Donovan is truly one of the good guys in mixed martial arts.

When you’re in a business long enough — in my case, mixed martial arts — you see a lot of things that kind of sour you on the whole experience. I’ve been somewhat jaded on the sport for some time. Don’t get me wrong, I still love fighting. I’m sure I always will. One of the things that has kept that love strong is watching genuinely good guys like Cody experience great success. I’ve been lucky enough to call him a friend since probably 2006 when the BJJ Boulder crew and the High Altitude crew (and a few others) began training together, forming what we called the “Colorado Top Team”. I think a couple of those nerds even got tattoos.

I was there for Cody’s first amateur fight in Vail (a sub-minute submission victory). I remember Ben Henderson losing to local Rocky Johnson on that same card. We got yelled at by the Colorado State Athletic Commission when they caught us slamming Guinness backstage at Ring of Fire 29, where we both experienced our first losses. We fought on the same card in February of 2008, when Cody won his first belt. I remember my wife and I losing it at a local bar watching Cody win his UFC debut in the middle of the day (on the one small screen they would dedicate to the UFC prelims). It’s truly been a pleasure watching Cody’s career from the beginning, and it’s bittersweet to see him move on from fighting.

I’ve fought many battles with Cody by my side, in the gym, in the ring, and in life. To one of the toughest dudes I know — here’s to enduring success in the rest of your life. The next beer’s on me.